At 17:35 31/08/98 -0400, Albert Henderson wrote :

on 28 Aug 1998 Simone JEROME <sjerome@ULG.AC.BE> wrote:
>[snip]
>
>> Maybe is it the true reason but I am not entirely convinced.
>> I have been in the library business since 28 years and what I
>> noticed is that publishers do only what they want: irregular
>> publication schedules, chaotic numbering of issues, vanishing
>> contents of issues (I mean a vol.n, 1-4 with 50 pages in it,
>> do I exagerate ?), prices which are climbing well above the rate of
>> inflation... and so on. The situation is far from being better
>> as time goes on.
>>
>> In a time when certification becomes so frequent (certification
>> of laboratories, of methods of analysis,...), why do not we, librarians,
>> ask for the creation of standards in publishing, stir independant
>> committees for the evaluation of each new title and the monitoring of the
>> evolution of existing ones? The certified journal might display a quality
>> label (a sort of iso-9000) so that consumers, scientists and librarians,
>> might know what they are writing in and what they are buying.
>
>This is a valid criticism. There are standards for publishers but
>they are relatively narrow and not enforced except where they are
>required, such as bar codes and ISBNs, for trade. PUBLISHING RESEARCH
>QUARTERLY has devoted considerable pages to standards and will do
>so in the future.
>
>But then standards for library quality are also ignored. THE STATUS
>OF ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED STATES (NCES 97-413 June 1997)
>by the National Center for Education Statistics cites an ACRL study
>suggesting that academic libraries should receive about 6 percent
>of their institution's total budget. That standard has never been
>achieved. The U.S. national average is 3.8% in 1992.
>
>Accreditation panels and the professional associations chartered
>to "promote the diffusion" of whatever discipline they support
>ignore the decimation of collections and inadequate staffing.
>What is the use of a standard when its intended beneficiaries
>don't seem to care. Or, I should say _the_representatives_ of
>the intended beneficiaries.
>
>In 1968, Jacques Barzun wrote in THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY that
>universities like Columbia allocated 6 percent to their library
>and that the library was heavily used by nonmembers of the
>university. The Mellon study indicated Columbia's library got
>only 3.22% in 1979 and 2.93% in 1990. In CHRONICLE OF HIGHER
>EDUCATION, Columbia professor James Shapiro wrote recently that
>most faculty never set foot in the library any more (LXV,16:B4-5,
>Dec 12, 1997)
>
>So, yes; what about standards?
>
>Albert Henderson, Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY
><70244.1532@compuserve.com>

Thank you for your comments, Mr Henderson.
I know your opinion on University funding but going back to
the sixties would require a thorough historical study and I
am not competent.
Moreover I work in a rather small European University which
cannot compete with Mellon and Columbia.
But what I can say about the last years i.e. the nineties
is that the average price of periodicals has doubled in less
than 10 years and that my salary has not, far from it. Neither
has the cost of living index nor the budget of the University.
What is wrong in that equation ?

Simone JEROME, Librarian
University of Liege
Institute of chemistry B6
4000 Sart Tilman (Liege 1)
BELGIUM

sjerome@ulg.ac.be
former address : udspring@vm1.ulg.ac.be